"Who are you?” came the entranced voice of Tyrone. He regarded the woman’s face with a keen eye. She looked like his mother, but somewhat older, more frail.

“I am whatever you need me to be, Tyrone.” Her own voice was soft as silk, soothing, and flowed like milk, warm from her lips.

Tyrone fell back off the chest, and now sat on the old wooden floor, which creaked every time his weight shifted. On other days, he would have used these noises to compose a veritable symphony of sorts, but not today. Today, he was ensorcelled.

“Then you are my angel,” he pronounced. “My mum always said I had one, but I didn’t know it was her!”

This brought a smile to the woman’s lips, a faint curve raising lines at her cheeks.

“Yes, your mother is and always will be an angel for you,” she started, “but I am not your mother, nor am I an angel. I am merely me, and my name is Disability.”

“Disability?” Tyrone struggled with the big, cumbersome word, though he was sure he had learnt what it meant, once.

“And you,” she said rather prophetically, “must learn to live with me. Everyday.”

Tyrone’s own lips twitched, before turning down in a disappointed frown.

“You sound like father.” Tyrone had been told to always use that word; ‘daddy’ was much too childish for the son of a man of great stature.

With a laugh, “Oh, but I am much more fun than your father is, Tyrone. And I will teach you much more important things that whan you have been learning from that tutor.”

“Like?”

Another laugh chimed brightly, followed quickly by Disability’s voice, now full of intrigue and mystery.

“It is best to learn by doing, not listening, in my mind.” She then paused, thinking. “Unless, of course, the act of doing is listening, or the listening a vital part of the doing. But come, you shall see what I mean soon enough.”

With that, Tyrone’s new friend opened the heavy wooden chest, revealing the contents to a very excited Tyrone. But what he saw surprised him even more than the appearance of Disability herself.

The chest no longer held his imprisoned toys. No, now it held something of far more value to the mind of a child. Inside the chest, bound by a simple piece of twine, was a map. Disability picked it up and tossed it between her hands, but did not unravel it. And as it passed from left to right, right to left, and back once more, a shape and a colour caught Tyrone’s ever-observant eyes.

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